


Kings of Medicine

by meguri_aite



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2652725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meguri_aite/pseuds/meguri_aite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The night fog was blurring the street lights, bringing back memories of glasses fogging up in cold weather, Tsunemori had just run off to act on yet another of her foolhardy ideas, his temples were pulsing with an upcoming headache, and Tougane had chosen this moment to try and engage him in one of his conversations.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kings of Medicine

“Didn’t you ever want it? For yourself?”

The night fog was blurring the street lights, bringing back memories of glasses fogging up in cold weather, Tsunemori had just run off to act on yet another of her foolhardy ideas, his temples were pulsing with an upcoming headache, and Tougane had chosen this moment to try and engage him in one of his conversations.

“What?” Ginoza tried to keep his tone neutral, but nothing petered into his patience quite like know-it-all faces and smug expressions.

Tougane exhaled a cloud of tobacco smoke, a constant unwanted reminder and a source of irritation, and repeated his question with exaggerated patience.

“Kamui’s medicine. Wouldn’t you want your clear Hue back?”

The condescension in Tougane’s voice was already too familiar to his liking, but the question itself managed to distract Ginoza enough from his growing irritation to consider it.

Would he, really?

Three years ago, Inspector Ginoza, so young and so angry with Enforcer Masaoka for taking away his father and with Enforcer Kougami for stealing his friend and partner, might have. Three years ago, Inspector Ginoza had been young and foolish enough to wish for miracles and hate them for being impossible at the same time, and he had desperately wanted the pieces of his old life back. Yes, that Inspector Ginoza might have wished for a miracle cure to get back his family and friends.

Two years ago, Inspector Ginoza had been none the wiser but so much angrier – with his Hue, which was getting muddier by the day, with newbie Inspector, so wide-eyed and clumsy and fiercely protective of her childish ideals, with Enforcer Masaoka for covering for her, and with the jitter of obsession taking over Kougami, again. He had thought he had been fighting against time, constantly on the edge, pitted against everyone on the team and outside it, and he had felt it was terribly unfair, because more than anyone, he had tried to have everyone stay put, a smooth-running gear in the machinery of the Sybil System. That Inspector Ginoza had feared his life was slipping out of control, and he might have wanted the cure for himself, as a proof that he had been doing things right, that truth had been on his side, that everyone should do what was good for them before it was too late.

And then, in the span of mere hours, Inspector Ginoza had learnt a few truths about himself and the world, at the cost of effectively turning his life upside down, wringing it inside out, casting everything in a different light like the photographic negatives of old – something his father had been fond of, back in the day. All life, the one he had been clinging on to by the skin of his teeth and the one he had mourned as lost to him by a cruel twist of fate, had been taken from him, washed clear of all pathetic truths of Inspector Ginoza in that stream of pain, and given back to him, stark naked.

What was truly unfair, thought Ginoza, was that the world had never felt so steady under his feet as when every thread he thought himself connected to had been brutally severed. Not until he had put away his glasses could he see clearly, not until he had been locked up with Enforcers could he walk in whichever direction he wanted, not until he had lost authority he could say whatever he wanted to.

In truth, Enforcer Ginoza, who worried so much that Inspector Tsunemori Akane would – once again - take onto her deceptively thin shoulders more than anyone should be ever forced to bear, had not thought even once that he wanted Kamui’s drug for himself.

“No,” he said simply, offering no explanations for his silence.

He saw Tougane raise his eyebrows, but Ginoza let the other man’s doubt slide right off him, not caring one bit about the opinion the other enforcer might have of him.

“Wouldn’t that have given you the power to better protect your… Inspector?” Tougane’s words were so thick with implication that it almost drowned out the tone of fake sympathy in which they were delivered.

“Tsunemori doesn’t need me, you, or anyone else to protect her,” Ginoza said with more bite than he had wanted to, and then continued in a calmer voice. “She has all the power already, and she uses it better than anyone. And I have her back, any time she needs.”

“How admirable,” chuckled Tougane. “Our Inspector Tsunemori, too - very admirable.”

With that, the other enforcer seemingly lost interest in their conversation, staring into the darkness which Tsunemori had disappeared into. Ginoza should probably be relieved that Tougane’s attention didn’t linger on his person too much, except he really wasn’t. Tougane’s unhealthy interest in his Inspectors was just another notch on the list of things he worried about and kept an eye on, for Tsunemori, who wanted to help everyone, but couldn’t be everywhere at once.

_Stay safe, Tsunemori. Come back._

_I have your back._

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday, Gino ~~and pls don't die on us too soon~~
> 
> my [dear deer](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Himmelreich/pseuds/Himmelreich) has all my thanks for helping with beta and faithful bookclub membership <3
> 
> the fic's name is a title of a Placebo song that is Ginoza levels of sad


End file.
